MINI-REVIEW
Fucoidans and fucoidanases—focus on techniques
for molecular structure elucidation and modification
of marine polysaccharides
Andrea Désirée Holtkamp
&
Svenja Kelly
&
Roland Ulber
&
Siegmund Lang
Received: 4 June 2008 / Revised: 7 November 2008 / Accepted: 8 November 2008 / Published online: 29 November 2008
#
Springer-Verlag 2008
Abstract The research field of fucoidans (sulphated poly-
saccharides from algae) and fucoidanases was strongly
developing in recent years. Several different fucoidans and
a few fucoidan-degrading enzymes were isolated and
characterised. A high potential is seen in the medical
exploitation of the fucoidans and its degradation products.
This review gives an overview about the research of the last
5 years concerning fucoidan characterisation and applica-
tion as well as enzyme detection, characterisation and
production.
Keywords Fucoidan
.
Sulphated polysaccharides
.
Fucoidan-degrading enzymes
.
Fucoidanase
.
Endo-type enzymatic activity
Introduction
Fucoidans are sulphated polysaccharides mainly based on
fucose, which may exhibit anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-
coagulant and anti-tumoural bio-activities. The first
isolation of “fucoidin” from brown algae was described
about 90 years ago (Kylin 1918), after that the number of
publications in this research field increased constantly. In
recent years, the interest in fucoidan from different
sources, its structure and its possible biological applica-
tions has increased (Fig. 1). In the last 10 years, the
research field of fucoidanases has come into focus and is
slightly developing.
Even though the number of publications is increasing
constantly, only part of the information is accessible. About
70% of the publications concerning fucoidan are written in
English and thus accessible to the whole research world. A
quarter is written either in Chinese, Japanese or Russian
and thus only accessible to a smaller number of researchers.
Regarding the fucoidanases, the partition is even more
evident. Only half of the available publications is written in
English (data collected by SciFinder® Scholar; American
Chemical Society; 2006). In 2003, Berteau and Mulloy
(2003) gave a very detailed overview of the research field
of fucoidan, its structure and the biological properties. The
aim of this review is to give an up-to-date overview about
fucoidans and their degrading enzymes. A special focus is
laid on the detection of fucoidans, the problems arising and
the difficulties with the acquisition of fucoidan from natural
sources.
Sources
Fucoidans may be obtained from several algae or marine
invertebrates like sea cucumber (Ribeiro et al. 1994) or sea
urchin (Mulloy et al. 1994; Vilela-Silva et al. 1999). The
term fucoidan is commonly applied for sulphated complex
polysaccharides, often extracted from algae, containing
fucose residues in various amounts besides many other
monosaccharides, whereas the term sulphated fucan is
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol (2009) 82:1–11
DOI 10.1007/s00253-008-1790-x
A. D. Holtkamp
:
S. Lang (*)
Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology,
Department of Biotechnology,
Technical University of Braunschweig,
Spielmannstr. 7,
38106 Braunschweig, Germany
e-mail: s.lang@tu-bs.de
S. Kelly
:
R. Ulber
Institute of Bioprocess Engineering, Department of Mechanical
and Process Engineering, University of Kaiserslautern,
Gottlieb-Daimler-Straße 44,
67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany